5 minute read
A True Teaching Treasure at Banneker Elementary
A True Teaching Treasure at Banneker Elementary
By Leonard Shapiro
Sarah Brissing, a reading specialist at Banneker Elementary near Middleburg (and truly so much more), recently recalled one of her many success stories. It involved helping one of her young English language learners overcome being intimidated by the prospect of reading books in English.
“He was just so averse to it,” Brissing, in her 18th year at the school, said of the then fifth grader. “We started little by little, just reading individual words, then short sentences, then long sentences. He was interested in the bible, in the military, soccer, and I was able to find books for him on those subjects, and his interest was huge.
“Then he started reading far more than I ever asked him to read, and he was so humble about it. I actually got goose bumps watching him do it. He’s in the seventh grade now, and he’s doing well.”
Virtually all the students who engage with Brissing and her two colleagues, Dee Dee Livesay, the school’s English language teacher, and Kristin Phelps, a literacy tutor, have similar positive results. They share a classroom at Banneker filled with all manner of instructional bulletin board material and other tools to enhance their one-on-one or small group sessions.
Brissing attended Middleburg Elementary and Blue Ridge Middle School followed by three years at Loudoun Valley High School and her senior year at the old Notre Dame Academy. She’s a graduate of Hollins University and has a Masters in reading from Shenandoah University. Her husband, Larry, owns and operates In Memoriam Pet Services.
She spent her first dozen years at Banneker as a kindergarten teacher and three more teaching fifth grade. During Covid, with three young daughters, she decided to home school her children for two years. She set up a basement classroom, and before long, a few friends and neighbors heard about it.
“They’d call and ask ‘do you have room for one more?’” she said, adding that she never said no. She did that for two years until she got a call from Banneker principal Robert Carter telling her there was an opening for a reading specialist and might she be interested?
Her answer was a resounding yes, and she returned to a school, to her colleagues and children she adores, including her three daughters, June, now 11, Elsie, 9, and Edie Belle, 7. June actually was in her mom’s kindergarten class, and her two younger sisters are now Banneker students.
“A lot of teachers might be intimidated by that, but to me it was a true gift,” Brissing said. “To see my children and what their strengths were, what their goals were. It’s an incredible opportunity not many get to have.”
Brissing also credits Principal Carter, a man she describes as having “a joyful spirit,” with giving her and her fellow teachers “a lot of autonomy and freedom. I’ll be forever grateful to him for this opportunity.”
And Carter is equally grateful.
“In my 10 years at Banneker, there are a few sure bets you can make every day,” he said. “One is that the school bell will ring welcoming students to start their day and two, that Sarah Brissing will be there doing what’s best for kids. She’s been a leader for our school’s adoption of research-based literacy best practices, and our growth in student achievement is a product of her leadership, coaching, and tutelage.”
“We work on everything with the students—phonemic awareness, rhyming, syllables, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency,” Brissing said. “I absolutely love it. It’s very intimate work, guiding students through challenges. It’s tough at times, but the reward is seeing them finally get it. It can be terribly hard, but terribly rewarding, too. We get to watch the lightbulb go on.”
Reading and parenting is not all she works on. Brissing is an extremely active member of Middleburg’s United Methodist Church, which she’s attended most of her life. Her parents, Mark and Mary Johnson, still live at Sunnyside Farm where she grew up and her dad is a long-time area veterinarian.
She’s been singing in the church choir since middle school and performs occasionally at church events with fellow parishioner Hunt Lyman, now the academic dean at Hill School but once her 12th grade English teacher when she attended Notre Dame. She also teaches Sunday school.
Wait, there’s more for this true force of nature. She’s on the board of the Middleburg Community Center and the Middleburg Library Advisory Board, an obvious affiliation for a woman who thrives on teaching reading. She’s had library personnel do presentations at Banneker, arranges Reading Machine visits, and helps her students get library cards, encouraging them to spend time there, as well.
She and her colleagues also are always finding ways to bring books to school, especially for some students whose family financial situations might preclude them from spending much at Banneker’s fall and spring book fairs.
“Yes, I’m very busy, but being involved keeps me engaged and fulfilled,” Brissing said. “I think about our community and being part of its fabric. Participating in all those things just feels like warmth to me.”
Especially when that light bulb goes on.
